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Cigarette Butts, 05/9/2005

Submitted by cbmiller on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 19:25

To: Community News (5/9/05)

It was early winter in l945 when my mother took me, a girl of ten, to Augsburg to visit my grandfather who lived at the outskirts. The train from Thannhausen to Augsburg must have been running again, otherwise how could we have gotten there. After supper my step uncle, two years older than I, said: “Let’s go to the Americans” with that he meant the club for the American GI’s. I was encouraged to go along. We walked through a dark deserted street, only lit by the moon which made the walls of the bombed out buildings stand out, but left the empty windows dark and threatening. It was snowing lightly and I was cold.

Did you have an advent calendar as a child? Do you remember opening the biggest door on Christmas Eve? There was Mary and Joseph and the Babe in the manger all bathed in a golden light. - When we got to the American club I felt as if the door to Christmas Eve was open, not on an Advent calendar but in real life. The building was undamaged with a big open portal from which light, warmth , and music came out. There were already many German kids loitering on the entrance steps. The GI’s, most of them with their Fraeulein on their arms, threw their cigarette butts down before they went in and now and then some chewing gum. The German kids scampered to pick up the these butts which were the reason why we came. I felt an obligation to do my share in helping my grandfather to some of these butts. But after I had scampered for two or three I was overcome by a deep sense of shame and humiliation and I just stood there freezing until my uncle said it was time to go home. At home my grandfather smiled happily at the evening “loot” undid the butts and rerolled the tobacco into new cigarettes. Let me remind you that all the health damaging ingredients of the tobacco are concentrated in the end of the cigarette.

Why am I telling you this? Since the day of the defeat the Germans have never stopped to scamper after American cigarette butts. Not only that; their relish for American butts has increased year by year. This German habit has now become so grotesque that the German government, Catholic and Protestant church officials are picking up the American victory celebration over Germany and celebrating it as their day of liberation.

In 1979 I had to go to Germany. At that time I had great hopes in Schoenhuber, in the meanwhile dashed. In a bookstore I asked for Schoenhuber’s book Ich war dabei. “We do not carry Schoenhuber’s books.” was the answer. When I asked why, the reply was: “dieser Mann gefaellt uns nicht – we do not like this man.” But the bookstore carried Hemingway. Thomas Mann was a personal louse, but he is a world class author. Hemingway was a personal louse and is a lousy writer, his reputation made, not deserved. In a letter he described with relish how he shot a young “Kraut” three times in the belly and when the German soldier went to his knees he shot him in the head that the brain came out of his mouth and nose. But the Germans picked up Hemingway as one of their favorite authors and made him their own. When I came out of the store which was on a beautiful square I could not help but be disgusted by the chewing gum mess on the terra lock bricks.

The last time I was in Germany was in l996. During this trip I felt such a revulsion to what the beloved Germany of my childhood had become that I did not want to see it again. It hurt too much. That was one reason. The other reason was political. I challenged Holocaust books in our public school libraries. A committee was formed with a Jewish professor of history being designated as the representative of the M. parents. He told the committee that I am known nationwide as a holocaust denier. I still have not made up my mind if should be flattered or consider it a threat. But since the Jewish watch groups report to Germany what goes on in the USA, I think it wiser to stay here. When my mother died in 1998 I let my cousin do the burying. If the Germans can imprison a Hans Schmidt, what would prevent them from imprisoning me. I will never see Germany again.

During the Nazi period the Germans had a thriving film industry which made excellent movies. My husband had to join the US army from 1965 to l968. He was assigned to Landstuhl, Germany. I can attest to the fact that during this period the German TV industry still produced excellent documentaries. In the meanwhile the German TV stations have picked up Hollywood, among them the abomination The Holocaust.

My husband loved and taped a German radio program featuring German folk music. A friend of mine visiting Germany recently, heard American music screeching over the Munich Marienplatz.

The German “left-wingers” tolerated by the German government, have picked up on American “Wildings” in the inner cities. “Left-winger” is a euphemism for criminals who have no ideology unless you call the delight in destruction an ideology. Man is a restless animal especially when young, desiring of action. This desire for action can be directed to positive ends, as it was in the Hitler Youth, or used for destruction as it is in the present day Germany.

I close with a dialogue from Goethe’s Faust. Let Faust stand for Germany.